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On Tue, 6 Jul 2004 20:08:22 +0100, "Colin"
wrote:
Has anyone had any success making a house name sign using a router?
I have 'reclaimed' some oak kitchen doors from a skip and rather fancy
trying to make a sign.

Is there a technique? Do I need to make some type of jig to get nice looking
letters, or do I need to be super careful?

TIA Colin

Have a poke around the Trend web site. They have lettering stencils
if you are looking to do evenly shaped and spaced letters. They also
have some jigs if you are mainly looking to do freehand work.
There are then cutters of various types such as V and round bottom
types. I believe that there may be some PDF files covering how to
use these items.

I would practice on a piece of softwood first, not least to see
whether you can fit Dunroamin, Cartref or Ambleside into the space.

Colin wrote:
Has anyone had any success making a house name sign using a router?
I have 'reclaimed' some oak kitchen doors from a skip and rather fancy
trying to make a sign.

Is there a technique? Do I need to make some type of jig to get nice
looking letters, or do I need to be super careful?

How about find a suitable font on the computer and type out your sign
then print it
then carefully cut out the printed parts, leaving the piece of paper with
the lettering cut out
place paper on wood
lightly spay paint the name onto the wood, then use take the router to it?

Grunff wrote:
Colin wrote:
Has anyone had any success making a house name sign using a router?
I have 'reclaimed' some oak kitchen doors from a skip and rather fancy
trying to make a sign.

Is there a technique? Do I need to make some type of jig to get nice looking
letters, or do I need to be super careful?

I've routed letters into slate without a jig, but it takes a long time.
Cut a tiny bit at a time. Once you are a few mm down, you can start
cutting a bit deeper with each pass.

I think a jig would make things a lot easier, but I doubt it'd be worth
making one for a one-off project.

It can be relatively easy.
Take a 8mm bit of MDF, or something.
Now, in a graphics package that supports outlines, add a really large
outline onto the font you've picked, that's the same diameter as the
router cutter bearing. (bearing guided cutter)
Print out, glue on, and cut away the MDF in the right places.
Then simply zip round the edges with the guided cutter.

On Tue, 06 Jul 2004 21:39:39 +0100, Grunff wrote:
Colin wrote:
Has anyone had any success making a house name sign using a router?
I have 'reclaimed' some oak kitchen doors from a skip and rather fancy
trying to make a sign.

Is there a technique? Do I need to make some type of jig to get nice looking
letters, or do I need to be super careful?

I've routed letters into slate without a jig, but it takes a long time.
Cut a tiny bit at a time. Once you are a few mm down, you can start
cutting a bit deeper with each pass.

I think a jig would make things a lot easier, but I doubt it'd be worth
making one for a one-off project.

Sir

What type of bit did you use for this, and what type of slate ?
I assume I am not going to be able to copy you using a wood bit, and
some rough slate ?

On Wed, 07 Jul 2004 19:54:20 +0100, Grunff wrote:
Rick Dipper wrote:
What type of bit did you use for this, and what type of slate ?
I assume I am not going to be able to copy you using a wood bit, and
some rough slate ?

It was a standard V groove wood bit, and the slate was a chunk of fairly
smoth ex-snooker table slate.

The bit actually looked pretty good at the end of the project, and is
still in use now. Slate's quite soft.